Kiwi comedian Dai Henwood says breathing has deteriorated due to ‘tumour activity’ in lungs

Kiwi comedian Dai Henwood has issued an update on his cancer journey, saying he’s had to postpone two comedy shows due to “tumour activity” in his lungs.

Addressing his 42,000 Instagram followers on Monday afternoon, Henwood said he’d had a “beautiful summer” and had been off cancer treatment.

“But as you can tell by my coughing, my breathing has deteriorated really quickly over the last two weeks,” he said.

“I’ve obviously got some tumour activity going on in my lungs, so I am going into chemotherapy a bit earlier than expected on Wednesday. Fingers crossed that’s going to knock things back and I’ll be able to talk and do what I love doing, which is comedy – and breathing of course.”

It was announced by comedy management company Notorious Management on Friday that Henwood’s Dai Hard comedy shows in Invercargill and New Plymouth – which were set to go ahead next month – would be postponed until June due to “medical circumstances”.

“I also apologise to the corporate gigs that I had to pull out of, it really hurts me as I have always had a pretty staunch work ethic installed in me by my late and great wonderful father and my amazing mother, and showing up and doing shows means a lot to me,” Henwood continued in his video.

“I’m going to do these Dai Hard shows because it means a lot to me.”

Henwood said most of all, he loved all his fans for the well wishes.

“I just need to hunker down, take care of myself and get fighting fit,” he said.

Henwood’s cancer journey began during pandemic lockdowns in 2020, when he was diagnosed with metastatic bowel cancer. He went public with a stage-four cancer diagnosis in January, 2023.

In September 2024, the first of the three-part documentary series Live and Let Dai was released, following the comedian as he underwent treatment for his incurable cancer diagnosis.

Episode one gave a brief rundown of Henwood’s diagnosis in 2020, after realising – while in Japan in 2019 – something was really wrong. The initial “intent to cure” changed when spots were found on Henwood’s lungs.

“It was that moment I realised I was living with cancer,” he said.

In the second episode, Henwood talked about realising something was seriously wrong, and in the third, he learned about letting go.